Symonds: « F1 teams need a number 1 driver »

Pat Symonds suggested that he had changed his mind about whether F1 teams should designate a number one driver among their drivers.

The British veteran, who is the Executive Director of Engineering at Renault, shared until today the style of politics that McLaren strives to offer with absolute equality between the two drivers.

But his boss Flavio Briatore recently stated that his counterpart Ron Dennis at McLaren made a mistake by taking Fernando Alonso for 2007 but without giving him a true leadership position alongside his teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Especially since the Spaniard had just been crowned world champion consecutively twice with Renault.

« Today, the roles must be clearly defined as number one and number two, otherwise you risk destabilizing the team, » said Briatore, who would be happy to reunite Renault and Alonso for 2008.

Symonds added during Renault’s podcast that the Enstone-based team has always offered equality between drivers, even though Alonso won his titles alongside the same teammate, Giancarlo Fisichella, in 2005 and 2006.

« Even when we won the championships with Fernando over the two years, there were opportunities to favor Fisichella, » said Symonds.

We were not going to favor one driver over the other and I have been very, very uncompromising on this subject in the past.

« But I must say that I have changed my point of view. »

« Car racing is a team sport and I think you really have to do what is best for the team and I think nowadays it’s better to put everything behind one car, » concluded Symonds.